Douce apocalypse
The so-called Douce Apocalypse is a work of English book illumination from around 1270. It was probably created for the later King Edward I and his wife Eleanor of Castile at the court school of Westminster in London and is considered a major work of High Gothic book illumination .
Content and equipment
Today the book consists of 63 parchment sheets in the format of 31.1 × 20.3 cm. Q. 1 to 12 contain an apocalypse in Old French with an anonymous commentary. Except for a figure initial, this part contains no illustrations. A large part of this old French apocalypse has been lost; it probably originally comprised 32 sheets.
The main part (f. 13 to 61) contains an apocalypse in Latin with excerpts from the commentary of Berengaudus . On top of each page there is a half-page miniature (approx. 110 × 145 mm), underneath in two columns the corresponding section of the Apocalypse as well as the Berengaudus commentary in smaller font. Most of the 97 miniatures are painted in color and decorated with gold, sometimes also with silver. Some miniatures are unfinished, only the pen sketches and sometimes the gold jewelry have been made. This part is almost completely preserved, only five sheets are probably missing.
Several sheets of paper are tied in front of the parchment sheets, these contain, among other things, rambling statements from 1795 by a previous owner of the manuscript (probably William Wilson).
Origin and history
The origin at the court school of Westminster is considered certain, but the date is controversial. Peter K. Klein considers the period from 1270 to 1274 to be the most likely. For centuries nothing has been known about the whereabouts of the manuscript. Around 1600 it was given the splendid Renaissance binding - presumably in Oxford - which it still has today. In the 19th century it came from the estate of William Wilson in the book trade, where it was purchased by Francis Douce in 1833. Douce bequeathed his collection to the Bodleian Library in Oxford , where the manuscript is kept to this day under the call number Ms. Douce 180.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Klein, p. 49.
literature
- Peter K. Klein: Apocalypse Ms Douce 180. Commentary on the complete facsimile edition. Academic Printing and Publishing Company, Graz 1983, ISBN 3-201-01165-7 .
- Ingo F. Walther, Norbert Wolf: Masterpieces of book illumination. Cologne u. a., Taschen 2005, pp. 186-187.
